Directory UMM :Data Elmu:jurnal:I:International Journal of Educational Management:Vol13.Issue4.1999:
Managing progress monitoring in United Arab Emirate
schools
Abdullah Hokal
Dubai Education Zone, United Arab Emirates
K.E. Shaw
School of Education, University of Exeter, UK
Keywords
United Arab Emirates, Dubai,
Students, Monitoring
Introduction
This paper is drawn from a five year project
concerned with managerial and procedural
This paper examines managerial
aspects of monitoring progress of students in
and associated aspects of monia group of elementary schools in Dubai,
toring pupil progress in United
United Arab Emirates. Western literature on
Arab Emirate state schools, based
school effectiveness mentions the importance
on an empirical study carried out
over five years in the Dubai Eduof progress monitoring (e.g. Reynolds et al.,
cational Zone. Such monitoring
1996) and, as will appear, it is of special
has been recognised as of imporconcern in the UAE where drop-out, repetitance to school effectiveness and
tion of years, and underachievement are
improvement. It is of special concommon, and there are in addition many ``at
cern in the Gulf because of the
prevalence of underachievement
risk'' students. Work on this topic allows
and drop-out there. The Ministry
insight into wider aspects of school managerequires only raw data of test and
examination performance. Gather- ment locally. The project is part of a larger
ing this consumes much time and series of studies of Gulf and Arabian Peninenergy but contributes little to
sula education currently on-going at Exeter
student learning. Data concerning (Shaw et al., 1995)
Abstract
``at-risk'' students are not shared.
Recommendations are made.
Study of this aspect of schooling
allows the opportunity to examine
other significant managerial aspects of UAE schools.
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
# MCB University Press
[ISSN 0951-354X]
Studies of Gulf schools
Published material in English on most
aspects of education in the Gulf region is
largely official in origin or is descriptive.
Sustained empirical work is much more rare,
but increasing. The current low price of oil
means that resources for supporting it are
noticeably constrained. Although there is
scope for detailed work on almost every
aspect of how local schools are run, effort and
resources are largely consumed by the immediate needs of the local schools and higher
institutions to cope with student numbers.
The exploitation of oil reserves produced
enormous sums for investment in social
services during the boom period, but affluence also produced a violent acceleration in
cultural change. This is apparent in consumerism, the adoption of Western architecture, artifacts and general aspects of the
infrastructure such as airports, docks and
roads. The coastal cities are modern, in parts,
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
http://www.emerald-library.com
ultra-modern. The social services, on the
other hand, while not neglected, have not
been so successfully implanted. This is in
large part due to the acute shortage of skilled
and experienced locals for administration
(Jreisat, 1997), which is also true of education
at all levels. States are forced to rely for staff
very heavily on Arabic speaking expatriates
from countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Yemen
and Pakistan. In addition, the predominance
of large families means that schools constantly struggle to keep up with births.
Trying to maintain stability under many
competing pressures is the obvious managerial priority. Quantity prevails over quality.
Unlike some other developing countries,
in, say, Africa, the UAE population is almost
wholly urbanised, often in tower blocks. But
among these are areas of much poorer
quality housing not so readily visible from
the boulevards. A proportion of state school
students come from families who live in
these less desirable areas. Such families are
usually quite traditional in outlook and
among older women in particular, illiteracy
is common. Modern education is not necessarily appreciated. All the ills that are to be
found among city dwelling children, comfortably off as well as poor, in the rest of the
world, also appear in the Gulf cities. Delinquency, smoking, substance addiction, drugs,
vehicle-related offences, school absenteeism
and the like, present teachers and school
social workers with just as many problems as
anywhere. Schools employ full-time social
workers, with the rank of senior teacher, to
handle the problems of the ``at-risk'' students.
Monitoring in UAE schools: the
context
Shaw et al. (1995) and Badri (1998) have
discussed a range of management and welfare issues in Dubai state schools whose
achievements and problems are reasonably
representative of schools in other Gulf States.
The system is a 6-3-3 pattern of elementary,
[ 173 ]
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
[ 174 ]
intermediate and high schools organised by
grades. Elementary schooling is now all-butuniversal for both sexes among local citizens
and retention in the intermediate schools is
high. It falls drastically at the high schools
which are not compulsory. Badri's (1997)
cohort study in detail, and many other
references in passing, have drawn attention
to the steady attrition of students, especially
boys, through failure to pass the grade
examinations, repetition of years, low
achievement and drop out. Since the Gulf
does not have many other resources than oil
and the private sector of business is dominated by expatriates, usually from India and
Pakistan, the labour market for locals is very
seriously distorted. In the main they will
only consider good, that is, supervisory or
government jobs, and are in any case expensive to employ, hard to dismiss and less
docile than contract staff from abroad. These
expatriates can earn several times the salary
that they could command at home and are
easily controlled by threat of refusal to renew
their short contracts. For many locals, on the
other hand, employment is a form of welfare
in the last resort. Since there are few or no
direct taxes, state schooling is a gift from the
rulers; recipients are not in a strong position
to complain about standards.
Nevertheless, developing human capacity,
creating human resources, must be a primary task for the Gulf States, however
tempting it is in the short term to import
skilled labour instead. In the developing
world economy an area for competition is
likely to be for favourable sites. The Gulf has
ample flat coastal sites, well supplied with
access by air, road and sea, and with, at
present, cheap sources of energy in local oil
and gas. By continuing to import labour from
low wage countries, at all levels of skill and
with knowledge of English and Arabic, as
they do already, Gulf States could provide
many products and services cheaply and
profitably. An example of this is the very
large and profitable Dubai Port Authority
and the adjoining free zone industrial area.
However, as this example shows, employment for locals would be restricted to a small
group at the top of the hierarchy, since below
that level, locals will not compete at the
salaries offered even if they have the skills.
In addition, there are all the problems
associated with the employment of women in
Islamic cultures. Girls outperform boys in
education. They can, in effect, only be
employed in a few areas such as teaching and
nursing and where they are not brought into
contact with men from outside the family.
This is changing,though slowly.
It is an obvious strategy to seek indigenisation of the workforce and reduce the
strain of expatriated resources on the treasury. This means providing incentives to
locals to train and join the local workforce in
the private sector, as happens more obviously in Saudi Arabia. After all, despite
their image, these ``oil-rich'' countries, as the
price of oil is now, are in reality middle
income countries. To move in this direction,
however, means building a high-quality and
effective educational system, orientated to
world market conditions, as has been the
case in those East Asian economies which,
until recently, have prospered. This has not
been lost on the rulers. In the UAE their
response has been to invest heavily in higher
education, notably in the huge campus at
Sharjah which houses three universities and
two higher colleges of technology, and there
are at least seven other higher education
institutions, and many smaller and specialised private colleges offering degree level
courses. But the flow of well prepared
students from the state sector of schooling is
absolutely crucial to filling this great supply
of places with locals. Badri's (1997) study
having cleared the ground, more specifically
focussed empirical work can now be undertaken. This study of pupil progress monitoring and its contribution to school
effectiveness is one example. Others might be
classroom management, assessment, or staff
development.
Management and monitoring: the
wider issues
Over the last decade a literature on school
improvement has developed alongside the
existing body of work on school effectiveness.
As Reynolds et al. (1996) have argued
throughout their book, school effectiveness
research has largely been an issue of measurement. It tends to centre around students'
cognitive achievements in tests and examinations and normally uses positivistic approaches to data collection, counting scores
and pass rates. School improvement research, on the other hand, is more a matter of
studying changes in school processes, often
by case studies and more qualitative methodologies. So far, the regulations and requirements of the Ministry of Education in
the Emirates (and no doubt elsewhere in the
Gulf) for information returns from schools
suggest that the authorities are still firmly
rooted in a school effectiveness outlook. Over
the period of this research (1993 to date) more
sophisticated approaches prepared to
countenance change and complexity and
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
orientated to general improvement have
become available to researchers. The present
project has attempted to move in this direction. Developments along either path, effectiveness or improvement, preferably
converging, would have much to offer this
hard pressed authority.
Because of its importance to the educational careers of the students and as an
indicator of school effectiveness, monitoring
student progress in UAE schools should not
be seen as a mere routine activity, but rather
as a significant area of leadership concern.
More sensitive progress monitoring that goes
beyond counting raw scores would be likely
to contribute to school improvement through
its potential for positive effects on motivation
and morale and through supportive feedback
to students. Training in this area would need
to form part of staff development. This is only
likely to happen if a culture of school
improvement could be nurtured. To help
bring this about, more studies in specific
school processes, especially in the classrooms (subject methodologies; movements
towards developing teaching for higher cognitive processes, etc.) are needed.
Interactions among three systems are involved. These are first, the administrative/
bureaucratic system linking schools with the
Ministry, which marks out the playing field:
what material is to be mastered and how
evidence of achievement is to be gathered
and recorded, but also used in decisions
about students and feedback to them. This
includes how tests, examinations and other
evidentially useful data are to be handled for
the purposes of certification and progress to
higher stages. Second, there is the internal
system of the school: how the regulations are
locally interpreted, how the activity is perceived and operated by the school personnel ±
heads, teachers, social workers and pupils.
Finally, there is the economic/employment
system for local citizens within which recorded school achievement leads to careers
training or otherwise economically rewarding outcomes. All these take place against the
backcloth of family and cultural values
where the traditional lifestyle has been
subject to accelerated change, modernisation, consumerism and the messages of the
electronic media.
Since these systems do not, in practice, fit
together very well, and are subject to a
degree of ``adjustment'' (which constitutes an
important role for management), a qualitative approach to research in this domain
seemed most appropriate. Where management interventions at the level of the educational zone or the school are important it
makes sense to bring the people back in, so
that in a situation of some complexity, which
is not public, the various parties concerned
can be offered some more systematic insights
into how each makes sense of the situation,
or at any rate claims to do so. Qualitative
methods aim not at statistical or experimental demonstration, but at enabling a concerned and experienced insider, with a
prepared mind (hopefully open, but through
study of the literature with clear ideas of
what to look for ± not just ``trawling around'')
to learn as much as possible in a structured
way about one aspect of social reality. ``Thick
description'', judgements, illuminations, and
even recommendations can be made with the
aid of which management decisions can be
explained, justified and even improved. This
is all the more important where procedures
and understandings that have been rather
fully developed in one context (the West) are
in the process of being imitated, adopted and
acclimatised to different conditions in another (modernising and developing societies
such as the Middle East). Development cannot be bought-in no matter how much foreign
exchange is available. It has to be learned,
partly as a form of technology transfer. In
studying this complex process, the deepest
concern is with system performance at all
levels as it, in this case the state schools
system in the UAE, approaches maturity but
still experiences important pressures to
adapt its purposes. The latest of these is
insertion into the world capitalist system and
the global market. Much of the learning at
early stages is ``blind'', uncritical. The empathy and awareness fostered by qualitative
studies, especially where they overlap with
professional experience, may help to combat
this, to make it more self-aware.
In sum, increasing the effectiveness of Gulf
schooling by developing awareness of the
working of its real processes, their maintenance and improvement by skilled management, is a crucial preliminary to building a
culture of improvement. In the end this has
to be done by locals. At present, from the
outside, what is happening in the Dubai zone,
administratively, looks like crisis management ± reactive moves to keep the total set-up
in some sort of stability. Qualitative methods
are still unusual in empirical work on the
Gulf. They involve observation, participation, and especially interviewing stakeholders in the processes, collating accounts
of a common situation from different viewing
points about perceptions, procedures, activities, decisions and outcomes. The accounts
have to be treated as texts to be interpreted
by an experienced insider with serious
theoretical preparation. The method is thus
``unashamedly subjective'', but careful and
[ 175 ]
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
systematic. An important test is whether the
informed reader finds the final product
intuitively convincing. It cannot be tested;
only partially overlapping replications can
build up a more general theory. In management writing, as in social science generally,
continuous redescriptions of fairly familiar
aspects of social reality and human experience allow of up-dating and deepening interpretations in the professional field. Its results
are directed to a critical audience, which
includes researchers who have been practitioners, as well as active managers and
policy-makers in the system.
The study
Eight elementary schools and heads were
involved including 30 teachers, 12 social
workers, 30 pupils, and key respondents in
the administration all from the Dubai educational zone (= district or division) where
the first author, a citizen, had been employed
for over a decade as a social worker.
Teachers readily mentioned the predictable range of sources of data for monitoring
progress ± testing, marking, examinations,
questioning, records and so on. There was,
however, a good deal of variation in emphases, with teachers of Arabic (basic linguistic skills) not surprisingly emerging as
the most active in their efforts to establish
base-lines of knowledge levels and ability.
Grasp of the language of instruction is
obviously basic to future learning. Much
English is spoken in some families. Many
children spend a lot of time in the company of
foreign maids who do not speak much
accurate Arabic. A good linguistic foundation cannot always be counted on. This is
even more important given the role of Arabic
in the pervasive religious culture of Islam
and also its important role as the basis of
Arab identity. It is clear that a schoolwide,
planned and conscious policy for monitoring
progress is lacking. Monitoring is seen as a
routine activity ± not to say chore ± a matter
of filling up the columns on the record sheets,
rather than as a professional concern that
might influence the teaching in more subtle
ways than simply selecting failing students
for extra classes in school or privately at
home. It quickly became apparent that little
systematic use was made of the data collected. The ministry requires collection and
recording of data on pupil progress. The
sheets of results are readily provided for
visitors as proof that monitoring is being
carried out. The research showed that the
inspectorate regard their availability as a
high priority, if not, indeed, after
[ 176 ]
examination results, as the priority. It is one
of the simplest forms of control and accountability, one of the key points at which the
administrative/bureaucratic and the institutional level systems intersect. But the quality
of the data ± hand-written lists of scores in
cognitive achievement ± is open to serious
question. It is clearly in the interest of
contract staff to put the best face on the
evidence of students' achievement, especially
as this is so salient a concern of the ministry.
One headteacher revealingly said that the
inspectors came to ``negotiate'' the students'
achievement scores so that they should be in
line with the ministry expectations. Given
the pressures, and as is often said of teacherbased assessment elsewhere, its objectivity is
somewhat compromised. In American terminology, ``teacher-assisted cheating'' is not
unknown nor confined to developing countries. In any case, few would deny that
experienced teachers would not wish to
reduce the motivation and morale of a class
they were to meet throughout the year by
setting a stiff test at an early stage, leading to
markedly negative feedback to the students
and a consequently hostile class.
Three consequences stand out. First, the
only data regarded as of serious significance
by the ministry are those relating to cognitive achievement, that is, simple, raw scores
in tests and examinations. As in many
developing countries, this entirely dominates
monitoring and assessment procedures and
shapes the expectations of all parties. Other
useful information is not regarded as so
important; teachers attention is diverted
from it. It may in some cases be recorded,
notably by social workers, but it is rarely
regarded as worthy of official notice. Second,
this emphasis on an explicitly assessment-led
approach means that teaching to the test
(where much of the testing is wholly in the
hands of the individual teacher) is regarded
as normal and natural from the earliest
stage. The textbook is the syllabus. Classes
are large. Resources are few. There are many
pressures. Inevitably teachers are constrained towards a distinctly restricted view
of the curriculum and their teaching approach. This is rarely other than directly
transmissive and authoritarian, as much
research by Middle Eastern writers (e.g. Tibi,
1998, 1990; Anabtawi, 1993) shows, right up to
post-graduate level. A final, third, aspect of
the institutional culture of the schools is that
the teachers tend to be ``privatised'' in their
mode of commitment. They look out for their
own advantage, occasionally that of their
own ethnic group among the contract staff,
and see little to be gained by cooperation.
Hence data are not shared, even with social
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
workers. School wide policies are at a grave
disadvantage. School management will face a
rather heroic task in wreaking changes on
this culture.
Head teachers are similarly constrained in
their roles. They all referred to the ministry
as the source of instructions and pictured
themselves as followers of such instructions.
As managers and leaders their role is thus
shrivelled and ritualised, at any rate by
Western standards. In an atmosphere of
mistrust, lack of horizontal cooperation and
in the face of difficulties in coordination
when seeking to implement policy, headteachers can offer little in the way of staff
development opportunities. One said ``I have
40 teachers and seven nationalities. Many of
them want to be satisfied at the expense of
the others''. Much time and energy is thus
spent by heads in arbitrating during squabbles about the allocation of preferred students and other resources, so that some
respondents used the phrase ``a culture of
conflict''. No doubt the intensity of this varies
among schools, but it is not difficult to see the
ways in which the structures predispose to
less-than-harmonious relationships.
``At the end of the year'' said a teacher ``my
report (i.e. appraisal for renewal of contract)
depends on the number of students passed or
succeeded''. Students, especially repeaters
who are very weak in basics, are distributed
at times very unequally among the classes.
According to some teachers this depends on
individual relationships with the headteacher. Hence, for the teachers very real issues
are at stake, but they are very often less to do
with the students' effective learning than
with the teachers' private concern for the
renewal of their contract. Heads are willynilly put into a position where they issue
instructions rather than listening, consulting
with staff and seeking school-wide policies
based on degrees of consent.
Only a few hours a year are set aside for
meetings, which rarely last longer than 30
minutes. They appear to be dominated by
complaints and instructions. Team building
and coordination of effort are rare or absent.
Time is a scarce resource, and the generally
reported view is that exchange of information about students, if it occurs, often takes
place at brief, chance meetings in the corridors among the staff. Anything that might
delay the progress of a class through the
curriculum units is counted against teachers
and may influence the chance of renewing
their contract. Hence individualisation of the
learning, attempts to make the material more
meaningful and capable of application outside the classroom and examinations, tend to
be disregarded and a class lock-step prevails.
Managing changes successfully in these
circumstances will present many difficulties.
Most of the levers of power are in the control
of the ministry, rather than the headteachers. In these conditions it seems wisest to
change a number of small things and hope
that the movement gradually builds up to a
visible change in the culture of the institutions, rather than seek a big imposed change
from the centre. Fortunately, this strategy is
in line with a good deal of the thinking in the
West, which underpins this article.
While oil prices remain low there will be
few resources to spare for large central
initiatives, nor is it apparent that the system
as a whole is ready for them. Rather the
general direction lies in efforts to find ways
of moving on from the predominantly school
effectiveness orientated ways of thinking at
all levels (but retaining the valuable central
core values of that movement) towards a
more school improvement orientated culture
within the institutions, if possible with
ministry backing.
At the heart of the problem lies the
teaching force. A greater local element would
be a step forward. The Saudi-Arabian experience has shown that this can be achieved.
As things are, there is little hope of much
change in this direction in boys' schools. The
Gulf war led to the loss of many Jordanian
teachers, many very experienced and by
general agreement some of the best trained in
the region. They were replaced by Egyptians,
often younger and less experienced. They are
even more likely to be concerned about the
renewal of their contracts. They do not
always settle down easily in the Gulf, and are
likely to be tempted by some of the less
desirable practices of the expatriates such as
supplementing earnings by home tutoring
after hours. One of the chief characteristics
of the school improvement writing has been
its attention to the attitudes, morale, and
beliefs of the teachers, their commitment and
not just their skills and competencies. This is
of cardinal importance in the Gulf. It draws
attention to the need for support for the
teaching staff as well as appraising and
supervising them.
In the Dubai zone centralisation has increased in recent years. The system has
expanded and will continue to grow, but
there have not been corresponding increases
in intermediate staff, the supervisors who
work with the schools and are soon to be
redesignated as ``coaches''. They provide the
links between the schools and the ministry
and oversee administration as well as teaching. More than 90 per cent are non-nationals.
They would be critical for school improvement since they are permanent and receive
[ 177 ]
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
most of what significant training is available.
Although educational expenditure is 14.6 per
cent of all government expenditure, it is only
1.6 per cent of Emirates gross domestic
product. It is overwhelmingly spent on staffing costs; resources and equipment have
been underprovided for a long time. This is
very evident in the lack of computers in
schools. Perhaps most serious is that there
appears to be no coordinated, state-wide
policy for schooling, so that the rigidly
centralised decision-making is very short
term and reactive. Budgeting is historic
rather than needs related. There is little sign
at present that any significant centrally
directed reforms are intended despite signs of
dissatisfaction among parents and a flight to
the private sector by those who can afford the
fees.
Conclusions
Right at the heart of issues facing management both at the school and at ministry level
is human resources development. When the
system was set up, around 30 years ago, it
was designed for a very simple, and at that
time doubtless necessary, form of school
effectiveness. It used very crude, raw data
about students' achievements as the central
performance indicator, with the appraisal of
contract staff and headteachers very much in
mind. This approach came to dominate
monitoring student progress so that, along
with other factors in the culture and organisation of schools, its use as supportive feedback and for more sophisticated diagnosis of
weaknesses, as well as to be an element in
guiding school-wide activities and policies,
was seriously neglected. The activity consumed, both school staffs and the ministry
agree, disproportionate amounts of time and
effort that ought to have been directed to
teaching. Beyond its bureaucratic purposes,
it served as a control mechanism which
would keep teachers, school leadership and
administrators on their toes, concerned
about their scores, promotion prospects,
renewal of contracts and general reputation
with the ministry. It appears to have been
rarely used to improve learning and teaching, certainly not in planned and systematic
ways. On the contrary, along with other
features of the teaching and organisation, it
contributed to perpetuating acceptance of a
significant amount of grade repetition and
drop out among students. It did little to help,
though it publicly identified various categories of ``at-risk'' students. All the signs are
that it reduced morale, misdirected effort,
gave rise to stress tensions and discontent
[ 178 ]
throughout those involved. Like policy making and budgeting, monitoring looks like a
rather primitive survival from an earlier
simpler stage of the system of public education in the UAE. Training and sensitising
teachers for a more thoughtful form of
monitoring might well be one of the best and
least controversial ways of beginning the
move to a more school-improvement orientation locally, especially if the procedures
were simplified and computerised.
Along with other aspects of the infrastructure of the state, public education in the UAE
has matured as a structure, though still
under much pressure, and rather unevenly.
The world in which the UAE came into being
has changed. The economy has grown, flourished, diversified, and been inserted into the
global economy. Many commentators, (Reich,
1993; Krugman, 1994; Avis, 1996 among many
others) have emphasised the need to develop
a high quality educational system in modernising countries; the UAE is capital rich
enough, still, to build one. It would continue
the tasks of creating among the population
commitment to the purposes and tasks of the
modern state. In any such undertaking the
resolve to have careful and sophisticated
measurement of outcomes, good public appraisal of educational institutions, is beyond
doubt. This is a lasting achievement of the
school effectiveness movement. Given the
characteristics of the UAE public educational
system, monitoring for effectiveness remains
a priority, though there is a need for modernisation of procedures. But in the conditions
of today, more is needed than a rather static
system, which harbours conflict and misuses
energy.
Since there is little likelihood of major
reforms from the central authorities, the
obvious alternative is to work to bring about
modifications in the culture of schools within
existing constraints. One of the central
themes of school improvement writing has
been change. UAE schools could well cultivate a more open attitude to change, recognising what is happening in the local
economy and the diversification of employment that is taking place in the coastal
conurbations. The emphasis needs to be on
improving school processes, of which monitoring pupil progress is one. Some modest
costs for computerisation would certainly be
incurred, but the real change has to come
about in attitudes and the school culture. The
tendency in recent years to reduce the
discretion of school leadership and transfer
initiative to the ministry does not help to
bring this about.
One final note is worth making. In all this,
Western writing, Western research, Western
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
teaching approaches are overtly or tacitly in
play. All modernising countries borrow,
adopt and domesticate procedures and to
some extent even purposes from overseas.
These are, even in schooling and educational
management, a special form of technology
transfer. If they are introduced piecemeal, as
is usually the case, it is all too easy to lose
sight of the fact that they generally call not
just for changes in the skill-mix of those
involved, but also changes in organisation
and in management techniques, which affect
commitment, perceptions, motivations, incentives, and support for the people involved.
That these will be attended to cannot be
taken for granted in the light of the above
account of the UAE system. Without such
concerns the ``technologies'' adopted or imitated are likely to be distorted, imperfectly
understood, and operated not particularly
conscientiously. Management both at the
school and the ministry level must expect to
have to change itself if changes are to stick in
the general organisation of schools and the
commitments (not merely the skills) of teachers so that school improvement may take
root. Such transfer involves much more than
learning how to operate the techniques
adopted. For at least some involved the
training needs to be such as to lead to
development and improvements of the techniques in the local context. This means that
training of selected, permanent personnel, in
research, project management, design and
realisation skills including application of
information technology, distance learning
methods, resource allocation, cooperation
among schools, assessment methods and staff
support skills, will be required. Not simply
welfare but longer term economic success
may depend on it.
References
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Resources Croom Helm, London.
Avis, J. (1996), Knowledge and Nationhood ,
Cassel, London.
Badri, A.A.M.A. (1997), ``The internal efficiency of
the educational system in the UAE'', unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Exeter.
Badri, A.A.M.A. (1998), ``School social work and
school effectiveness in the Gulf States'',
School Psychology International Vol. 19 No 2.
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Jreisat, J. (1997), Politics Without Process, Lynn
Reiner, Boulder, CO.
Krugman, P. (1994), Peddling Prosperity, W.W.
Norton & Co.,New York, NY.
Reynolds, D. et al. (1996), Making Good Schools,
Routledge, London.
Reich, R. (1993), The Work of Nations, Simon and
Schuster, New York, NY.
Shaw, K.E. et al. (1996), ``Management concerns of
UAE state schools'', International Journal of
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[ 179 ]
schools
Abdullah Hokal
Dubai Education Zone, United Arab Emirates
K.E. Shaw
School of Education, University of Exeter, UK
Keywords
United Arab Emirates, Dubai,
Students, Monitoring
Introduction
This paper is drawn from a five year project
concerned with managerial and procedural
This paper examines managerial
aspects of monitoring progress of students in
and associated aspects of monia group of elementary schools in Dubai,
toring pupil progress in United
United Arab Emirates. Western literature on
Arab Emirate state schools, based
school effectiveness mentions the importance
on an empirical study carried out
over five years in the Dubai Eduof progress monitoring (e.g. Reynolds et al.,
cational Zone. Such monitoring
1996) and, as will appear, it is of special
has been recognised as of imporconcern in the UAE where drop-out, repetitance to school effectiveness and
tion of years, and underachievement are
improvement. It is of special concommon, and there are in addition many ``at
cern in the Gulf because of the
prevalence of underachievement
risk'' students. Work on this topic allows
and drop-out there. The Ministry
insight into wider aspects of school managerequires only raw data of test and
examination performance. Gather- ment locally. The project is part of a larger
ing this consumes much time and series of studies of Gulf and Arabian Peninenergy but contributes little to
sula education currently on-going at Exeter
student learning. Data concerning (Shaw et al., 1995)
Abstract
``at-risk'' students are not shared.
Recommendations are made.
Study of this aspect of schooling
allows the opportunity to examine
other significant managerial aspects of UAE schools.
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
# MCB University Press
[ISSN 0951-354X]
Studies of Gulf schools
Published material in English on most
aspects of education in the Gulf region is
largely official in origin or is descriptive.
Sustained empirical work is much more rare,
but increasing. The current low price of oil
means that resources for supporting it are
noticeably constrained. Although there is
scope for detailed work on almost every
aspect of how local schools are run, effort and
resources are largely consumed by the immediate needs of the local schools and higher
institutions to cope with student numbers.
The exploitation of oil reserves produced
enormous sums for investment in social
services during the boom period, but affluence also produced a violent acceleration in
cultural change. This is apparent in consumerism, the adoption of Western architecture, artifacts and general aspects of the
infrastructure such as airports, docks and
roads. The coastal cities are modern, in parts,
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
http://www.emerald-library.com
ultra-modern. The social services, on the
other hand, while not neglected, have not
been so successfully implanted. This is in
large part due to the acute shortage of skilled
and experienced locals for administration
(Jreisat, 1997), which is also true of education
at all levels. States are forced to rely for staff
very heavily on Arabic speaking expatriates
from countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Yemen
and Pakistan. In addition, the predominance
of large families means that schools constantly struggle to keep up with births.
Trying to maintain stability under many
competing pressures is the obvious managerial priority. Quantity prevails over quality.
Unlike some other developing countries,
in, say, Africa, the UAE population is almost
wholly urbanised, often in tower blocks. But
among these are areas of much poorer
quality housing not so readily visible from
the boulevards. A proportion of state school
students come from families who live in
these less desirable areas. Such families are
usually quite traditional in outlook and
among older women in particular, illiteracy
is common. Modern education is not necessarily appreciated. All the ills that are to be
found among city dwelling children, comfortably off as well as poor, in the rest of the
world, also appear in the Gulf cities. Delinquency, smoking, substance addiction, drugs,
vehicle-related offences, school absenteeism
and the like, present teachers and school
social workers with just as many problems as
anywhere. Schools employ full-time social
workers, with the rank of senior teacher, to
handle the problems of the ``at-risk'' students.
Monitoring in UAE schools: the
context
Shaw et al. (1995) and Badri (1998) have
discussed a range of management and welfare issues in Dubai state schools whose
achievements and problems are reasonably
representative of schools in other Gulf States.
The system is a 6-3-3 pattern of elementary,
[ 173 ]
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
[ 174 ]
intermediate and high schools organised by
grades. Elementary schooling is now all-butuniversal for both sexes among local citizens
and retention in the intermediate schools is
high. It falls drastically at the high schools
which are not compulsory. Badri's (1997)
cohort study in detail, and many other
references in passing, have drawn attention
to the steady attrition of students, especially
boys, through failure to pass the grade
examinations, repetition of years, low
achievement and drop out. Since the Gulf
does not have many other resources than oil
and the private sector of business is dominated by expatriates, usually from India and
Pakistan, the labour market for locals is very
seriously distorted. In the main they will
only consider good, that is, supervisory or
government jobs, and are in any case expensive to employ, hard to dismiss and less
docile than contract staff from abroad. These
expatriates can earn several times the salary
that they could command at home and are
easily controlled by threat of refusal to renew
their short contracts. For many locals, on the
other hand, employment is a form of welfare
in the last resort. Since there are few or no
direct taxes, state schooling is a gift from the
rulers; recipients are not in a strong position
to complain about standards.
Nevertheless, developing human capacity,
creating human resources, must be a primary task for the Gulf States, however
tempting it is in the short term to import
skilled labour instead. In the developing
world economy an area for competition is
likely to be for favourable sites. The Gulf has
ample flat coastal sites, well supplied with
access by air, road and sea, and with, at
present, cheap sources of energy in local oil
and gas. By continuing to import labour from
low wage countries, at all levels of skill and
with knowledge of English and Arabic, as
they do already, Gulf States could provide
many products and services cheaply and
profitably. An example of this is the very
large and profitable Dubai Port Authority
and the adjoining free zone industrial area.
However, as this example shows, employment for locals would be restricted to a small
group at the top of the hierarchy, since below
that level, locals will not compete at the
salaries offered even if they have the skills.
In addition, there are all the problems
associated with the employment of women in
Islamic cultures. Girls outperform boys in
education. They can, in effect, only be
employed in a few areas such as teaching and
nursing and where they are not brought into
contact with men from outside the family.
This is changing,though slowly.
It is an obvious strategy to seek indigenisation of the workforce and reduce the
strain of expatriated resources on the treasury. This means providing incentives to
locals to train and join the local workforce in
the private sector, as happens more obviously in Saudi Arabia. After all, despite
their image, these ``oil-rich'' countries, as the
price of oil is now, are in reality middle
income countries. To move in this direction,
however, means building a high-quality and
effective educational system, orientated to
world market conditions, as has been the
case in those East Asian economies which,
until recently, have prospered. This has not
been lost on the rulers. In the UAE their
response has been to invest heavily in higher
education, notably in the huge campus at
Sharjah which houses three universities and
two higher colleges of technology, and there
are at least seven other higher education
institutions, and many smaller and specialised private colleges offering degree level
courses. But the flow of well prepared
students from the state sector of schooling is
absolutely crucial to filling this great supply
of places with locals. Badri's (1997) study
having cleared the ground, more specifically
focussed empirical work can now be undertaken. This study of pupil progress monitoring and its contribution to school
effectiveness is one example. Others might be
classroom management, assessment, or staff
development.
Management and monitoring: the
wider issues
Over the last decade a literature on school
improvement has developed alongside the
existing body of work on school effectiveness.
As Reynolds et al. (1996) have argued
throughout their book, school effectiveness
research has largely been an issue of measurement. It tends to centre around students'
cognitive achievements in tests and examinations and normally uses positivistic approaches to data collection, counting scores
and pass rates. School improvement research, on the other hand, is more a matter of
studying changes in school processes, often
by case studies and more qualitative methodologies. So far, the regulations and requirements of the Ministry of Education in
the Emirates (and no doubt elsewhere in the
Gulf) for information returns from schools
suggest that the authorities are still firmly
rooted in a school effectiveness outlook. Over
the period of this research (1993 to date) more
sophisticated approaches prepared to
countenance change and complexity and
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
orientated to general improvement have
become available to researchers. The present
project has attempted to move in this direction. Developments along either path, effectiveness or improvement, preferably
converging, would have much to offer this
hard pressed authority.
Because of its importance to the educational careers of the students and as an
indicator of school effectiveness, monitoring
student progress in UAE schools should not
be seen as a mere routine activity, but rather
as a significant area of leadership concern.
More sensitive progress monitoring that goes
beyond counting raw scores would be likely
to contribute to school improvement through
its potential for positive effects on motivation
and morale and through supportive feedback
to students. Training in this area would need
to form part of staff development. This is only
likely to happen if a culture of school
improvement could be nurtured. To help
bring this about, more studies in specific
school processes, especially in the classrooms (subject methodologies; movements
towards developing teaching for higher cognitive processes, etc.) are needed.
Interactions among three systems are involved. These are first, the administrative/
bureaucratic system linking schools with the
Ministry, which marks out the playing field:
what material is to be mastered and how
evidence of achievement is to be gathered
and recorded, but also used in decisions
about students and feedback to them. This
includes how tests, examinations and other
evidentially useful data are to be handled for
the purposes of certification and progress to
higher stages. Second, there is the internal
system of the school: how the regulations are
locally interpreted, how the activity is perceived and operated by the school personnel ±
heads, teachers, social workers and pupils.
Finally, there is the economic/employment
system for local citizens within which recorded school achievement leads to careers
training or otherwise economically rewarding outcomes. All these take place against the
backcloth of family and cultural values
where the traditional lifestyle has been
subject to accelerated change, modernisation, consumerism and the messages of the
electronic media.
Since these systems do not, in practice, fit
together very well, and are subject to a
degree of ``adjustment'' (which constitutes an
important role for management), a qualitative approach to research in this domain
seemed most appropriate. Where management interventions at the level of the educational zone or the school are important it
makes sense to bring the people back in, so
that in a situation of some complexity, which
is not public, the various parties concerned
can be offered some more systematic insights
into how each makes sense of the situation,
or at any rate claims to do so. Qualitative
methods aim not at statistical or experimental demonstration, but at enabling a concerned and experienced insider, with a
prepared mind (hopefully open, but through
study of the literature with clear ideas of
what to look for ± not just ``trawling around'')
to learn as much as possible in a structured
way about one aspect of social reality. ``Thick
description'', judgements, illuminations, and
even recommendations can be made with the
aid of which management decisions can be
explained, justified and even improved. This
is all the more important where procedures
and understandings that have been rather
fully developed in one context (the West) are
in the process of being imitated, adopted and
acclimatised to different conditions in another (modernising and developing societies
such as the Middle East). Development cannot be bought-in no matter how much foreign
exchange is available. It has to be learned,
partly as a form of technology transfer. In
studying this complex process, the deepest
concern is with system performance at all
levels as it, in this case the state schools
system in the UAE, approaches maturity but
still experiences important pressures to
adapt its purposes. The latest of these is
insertion into the world capitalist system and
the global market. Much of the learning at
early stages is ``blind'', uncritical. The empathy and awareness fostered by qualitative
studies, especially where they overlap with
professional experience, may help to combat
this, to make it more self-aware.
In sum, increasing the effectiveness of Gulf
schooling by developing awareness of the
working of its real processes, their maintenance and improvement by skilled management, is a crucial preliminary to building a
culture of improvement. In the end this has
to be done by locals. At present, from the
outside, what is happening in the Dubai zone,
administratively, looks like crisis management ± reactive moves to keep the total set-up
in some sort of stability. Qualitative methods
are still unusual in empirical work on the
Gulf. They involve observation, participation, and especially interviewing stakeholders in the processes, collating accounts
of a common situation from different viewing
points about perceptions, procedures, activities, decisions and outcomes. The accounts
have to be treated as texts to be interpreted
by an experienced insider with serious
theoretical preparation. The method is thus
``unashamedly subjective'', but careful and
[ 175 ]
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
systematic. An important test is whether the
informed reader finds the final product
intuitively convincing. It cannot be tested;
only partially overlapping replications can
build up a more general theory. In management writing, as in social science generally,
continuous redescriptions of fairly familiar
aspects of social reality and human experience allow of up-dating and deepening interpretations in the professional field. Its results
are directed to a critical audience, which
includes researchers who have been practitioners, as well as active managers and
policy-makers in the system.
The study
Eight elementary schools and heads were
involved including 30 teachers, 12 social
workers, 30 pupils, and key respondents in
the administration all from the Dubai educational zone (= district or division) where
the first author, a citizen, had been employed
for over a decade as a social worker.
Teachers readily mentioned the predictable range of sources of data for monitoring
progress ± testing, marking, examinations,
questioning, records and so on. There was,
however, a good deal of variation in emphases, with teachers of Arabic (basic linguistic skills) not surprisingly emerging as
the most active in their efforts to establish
base-lines of knowledge levels and ability.
Grasp of the language of instruction is
obviously basic to future learning. Much
English is spoken in some families. Many
children spend a lot of time in the company of
foreign maids who do not speak much
accurate Arabic. A good linguistic foundation cannot always be counted on. This is
even more important given the role of Arabic
in the pervasive religious culture of Islam
and also its important role as the basis of
Arab identity. It is clear that a schoolwide,
planned and conscious policy for monitoring
progress is lacking. Monitoring is seen as a
routine activity ± not to say chore ± a matter
of filling up the columns on the record sheets,
rather than as a professional concern that
might influence the teaching in more subtle
ways than simply selecting failing students
for extra classes in school or privately at
home. It quickly became apparent that little
systematic use was made of the data collected. The ministry requires collection and
recording of data on pupil progress. The
sheets of results are readily provided for
visitors as proof that monitoring is being
carried out. The research showed that the
inspectorate regard their availability as a
high priority, if not, indeed, after
[ 176 ]
examination results, as the priority. It is one
of the simplest forms of control and accountability, one of the key points at which the
administrative/bureaucratic and the institutional level systems intersect. But the quality
of the data ± hand-written lists of scores in
cognitive achievement ± is open to serious
question. It is clearly in the interest of
contract staff to put the best face on the
evidence of students' achievement, especially
as this is so salient a concern of the ministry.
One headteacher revealingly said that the
inspectors came to ``negotiate'' the students'
achievement scores so that they should be in
line with the ministry expectations. Given
the pressures, and as is often said of teacherbased assessment elsewhere, its objectivity is
somewhat compromised. In American terminology, ``teacher-assisted cheating'' is not
unknown nor confined to developing countries. In any case, few would deny that
experienced teachers would not wish to
reduce the motivation and morale of a class
they were to meet throughout the year by
setting a stiff test at an early stage, leading to
markedly negative feedback to the students
and a consequently hostile class.
Three consequences stand out. First, the
only data regarded as of serious significance
by the ministry are those relating to cognitive achievement, that is, simple, raw scores
in tests and examinations. As in many
developing countries, this entirely dominates
monitoring and assessment procedures and
shapes the expectations of all parties. Other
useful information is not regarded as so
important; teachers attention is diverted
from it. It may in some cases be recorded,
notably by social workers, but it is rarely
regarded as worthy of official notice. Second,
this emphasis on an explicitly assessment-led
approach means that teaching to the test
(where much of the testing is wholly in the
hands of the individual teacher) is regarded
as normal and natural from the earliest
stage. The textbook is the syllabus. Classes
are large. Resources are few. There are many
pressures. Inevitably teachers are constrained towards a distinctly restricted view
of the curriculum and their teaching approach. This is rarely other than directly
transmissive and authoritarian, as much
research by Middle Eastern writers (e.g. Tibi,
1998, 1990; Anabtawi, 1993) shows, right up to
post-graduate level. A final, third, aspect of
the institutional culture of the schools is that
the teachers tend to be ``privatised'' in their
mode of commitment. They look out for their
own advantage, occasionally that of their
own ethnic group among the contract staff,
and see little to be gained by cooperation.
Hence data are not shared, even with social
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
workers. School wide policies are at a grave
disadvantage. School management will face a
rather heroic task in wreaking changes on
this culture.
Head teachers are similarly constrained in
their roles. They all referred to the ministry
as the source of instructions and pictured
themselves as followers of such instructions.
As managers and leaders their role is thus
shrivelled and ritualised, at any rate by
Western standards. In an atmosphere of
mistrust, lack of horizontal cooperation and
in the face of difficulties in coordination
when seeking to implement policy, headteachers can offer little in the way of staff
development opportunities. One said ``I have
40 teachers and seven nationalities. Many of
them want to be satisfied at the expense of
the others''. Much time and energy is thus
spent by heads in arbitrating during squabbles about the allocation of preferred students and other resources, so that some
respondents used the phrase ``a culture of
conflict''. No doubt the intensity of this varies
among schools, but it is not difficult to see the
ways in which the structures predispose to
less-than-harmonious relationships.
``At the end of the year'' said a teacher ``my
report (i.e. appraisal for renewal of contract)
depends on the number of students passed or
succeeded''. Students, especially repeaters
who are very weak in basics, are distributed
at times very unequally among the classes.
According to some teachers this depends on
individual relationships with the headteacher. Hence, for the teachers very real issues
are at stake, but they are very often less to do
with the students' effective learning than
with the teachers' private concern for the
renewal of their contract. Heads are willynilly put into a position where they issue
instructions rather than listening, consulting
with staff and seeking school-wide policies
based on degrees of consent.
Only a few hours a year are set aside for
meetings, which rarely last longer than 30
minutes. They appear to be dominated by
complaints and instructions. Team building
and coordination of effort are rare or absent.
Time is a scarce resource, and the generally
reported view is that exchange of information about students, if it occurs, often takes
place at brief, chance meetings in the corridors among the staff. Anything that might
delay the progress of a class through the
curriculum units is counted against teachers
and may influence the chance of renewing
their contract. Hence individualisation of the
learning, attempts to make the material more
meaningful and capable of application outside the classroom and examinations, tend to
be disregarded and a class lock-step prevails.
Managing changes successfully in these
circumstances will present many difficulties.
Most of the levers of power are in the control
of the ministry, rather than the headteachers. In these conditions it seems wisest to
change a number of small things and hope
that the movement gradually builds up to a
visible change in the culture of the institutions, rather than seek a big imposed change
from the centre. Fortunately, this strategy is
in line with a good deal of the thinking in the
West, which underpins this article.
While oil prices remain low there will be
few resources to spare for large central
initiatives, nor is it apparent that the system
as a whole is ready for them. Rather the
general direction lies in efforts to find ways
of moving on from the predominantly school
effectiveness orientated ways of thinking at
all levels (but retaining the valuable central
core values of that movement) towards a
more school improvement orientated culture
within the institutions, if possible with
ministry backing.
At the heart of the problem lies the
teaching force. A greater local element would
be a step forward. The Saudi-Arabian experience has shown that this can be achieved.
As things are, there is little hope of much
change in this direction in boys' schools. The
Gulf war led to the loss of many Jordanian
teachers, many very experienced and by
general agreement some of the best trained in
the region. They were replaced by Egyptians,
often younger and less experienced. They are
even more likely to be concerned about the
renewal of their contracts. They do not
always settle down easily in the Gulf, and are
likely to be tempted by some of the less
desirable practices of the expatriates such as
supplementing earnings by home tutoring
after hours. One of the chief characteristics
of the school improvement writing has been
its attention to the attitudes, morale, and
beliefs of the teachers, their commitment and
not just their skills and competencies. This is
of cardinal importance in the Gulf. It draws
attention to the need for support for the
teaching staff as well as appraising and
supervising them.
In the Dubai zone centralisation has increased in recent years. The system has
expanded and will continue to grow, but
there have not been corresponding increases
in intermediate staff, the supervisors who
work with the schools and are soon to be
redesignated as ``coaches''. They provide the
links between the schools and the ministry
and oversee administration as well as teaching. More than 90 per cent are non-nationals.
They would be critical for school improvement since they are permanent and receive
[ 177 ]
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
most of what significant training is available.
Although educational expenditure is 14.6 per
cent of all government expenditure, it is only
1.6 per cent of Emirates gross domestic
product. It is overwhelmingly spent on staffing costs; resources and equipment have
been underprovided for a long time. This is
very evident in the lack of computers in
schools. Perhaps most serious is that there
appears to be no coordinated, state-wide
policy for schooling, so that the rigidly
centralised decision-making is very short
term and reactive. Budgeting is historic
rather than needs related. There is little sign
at present that any significant centrally
directed reforms are intended despite signs of
dissatisfaction among parents and a flight to
the private sector by those who can afford the
fees.
Conclusions
Right at the heart of issues facing management both at the school and at ministry level
is human resources development. When the
system was set up, around 30 years ago, it
was designed for a very simple, and at that
time doubtless necessary, form of school
effectiveness. It used very crude, raw data
about students' achievements as the central
performance indicator, with the appraisal of
contract staff and headteachers very much in
mind. This approach came to dominate
monitoring student progress so that, along
with other factors in the culture and organisation of schools, its use as supportive feedback and for more sophisticated diagnosis of
weaknesses, as well as to be an element in
guiding school-wide activities and policies,
was seriously neglected. The activity consumed, both school staffs and the ministry
agree, disproportionate amounts of time and
effort that ought to have been directed to
teaching. Beyond its bureaucratic purposes,
it served as a control mechanism which
would keep teachers, school leadership and
administrators on their toes, concerned
about their scores, promotion prospects,
renewal of contracts and general reputation
with the ministry. It appears to have been
rarely used to improve learning and teaching, certainly not in planned and systematic
ways. On the contrary, along with other
features of the teaching and organisation, it
contributed to perpetuating acceptance of a
significant amount of grade repetition and
drop out among students. It did little to help,
though it publicly identified various categories of ``at-risk'' students. All the signs are
that it reduced morale, misdirected effort,
gave rise to stress tensions and discontent
[ 178 ]
throughout those involved. Like policy making and budgeting, monitoring looks like a
rather primitive survival from an earlier
simpler stage of the system of public education in the UAE. Training and sensitising
teachers for a more thoughtful form of
monitoring might well be one of the best and
least controversial ways of beginning the
move to a more school-improvement orientation locally, especially if the procedures
were simplified and computerised.
Along with other aspects of the infrastructure of the state, public education in the UAE
has matured as a structure, though still
under much pressure, and rather unevenly.
The world in which the UAE came into being
has changed. The economy has grown, flourished, diversified, and been inserted into the
global economy. Many commentators, (Reich,
1993; Krugman, 1994; Avis, 1996 among many
others) have emphasised the need to develop
a high quality educational system in modernising countries; the UAE is capital rich
enough, still, to build one. It would continue
the tasks of creating among the population
commitment to the purposes and tasks of the
modern state. In any such undertaking the
resolve to have careful and sophisticated
measurement of outcomes, good public appraisal of educational institutions, is beyond
doubt. This is a lasting achievement of the
school effectiveness movement. Given the
characteristics of the UAE public educational
system, monitoring for effectiveness remains
a priority, though there is a need for modernisation of procedures. But in the conditions
of today, more is needed than a rather static
system, which harbours conflict and misuses
energy.
Since there is little likelihood of major
reforms from the central authorities, the
obvious alternative is to work to bring about
modifications in the culture of schools within
existing constraints. One of the central
themes of school improvement writing has
been change. UAE schools could well cultivate a more open attitude to change, recognising what is happening in the local
economy and the diversification of employment that is taking place in the coastal
conurbations. The emphasis needs to be on
improving school processes, of which monitoring pupil progress is one. Some modest
costs for computerisation would certainly be
incurred, but the real change has to come
about in attitudes and the school culture. The
tendency in recent years to reduce the
discretion of school leadership and transfer
initiative to the ministry does not help to
bring this about.
One final note is worth making. In all this,
Western writing, Western research, Western
Abdullah Hokal and K.E.Shaw
Managing progress
monitoring in United Arab
Emirate schools
The International Journal of
Educational Management
13/4 [1999] 173±179
teaching approaches are overtly or tacitly in
play. All modernising countries borrow,
adopt and domesticate procedures and to
some extent even purposes from overseas.
These are, even in schooling and educational
management, a special form of technology
transfer. If they are introduced piecemeal, as
is usually the case, it is all too easy to lose
sight of the fact that they generally call not
just for changes in the skill-mix of those
involved, but also changes in organisation
and in management techniques, which affect
commitment, perceptions, motivations, incentives, and support for the people involved.
That these will be attended to cannot be
taken for granted in the light of the above
account of the UAE system. Without such
concerns the ``technologies'' adopted or imitated are likely to be distorted, imperfectly
understood, and operated not particularly
conscientiously. Management both at the
school and the ministry level must expect to
have to change itself if changes are to stick in
the general organisation of schools and the
commitments (not merely the skills) of teachers so that school improvement may take
root. Such transfer involves much more than
learning how to operate the techniques
adopted. For at least some involved the
training needs to be such as to lead to
development and improvements of the techniques in the local context. This means that
training of selected, permanent personnel, in
research, project management, design and
realisation skills including application of
information technology, distance learning
methods, resource allocation, cooperation
among schools, assessment methods and staff
support skills, will be required. Not simply
welfare but longer term economic success
may depend on it.
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